I just wrote about the awesome first part of my day onSaturday at the Rossland Winter Carnival. My awesome day continued with a trip
to Grand Fork’s to check out Mountain FM Night at Phoenix Mountain. Now, I
haven’t been downhill skiing since I was 15, nearly a decade ago. And before
that it had been since I was 11. Skiing, not a huge part of young Kate’s life.
I have always loved to ski, I think I would have been seriously addicted to
skiing if I had not have started playing hockey and would have had more time
for it. But, here we are, I am nearly 25 and have downhill skied three times;
and I love it.
Back to Mountain FM night at Phoenix Mountain, well it
started a little rough. My boyfriend joined me on the night adventure to Grand
Forks and he wanted to test that I really am able to ski by taking me down the
bunny hill. This was a horrible idea. It was like my body had forgot everything
it had learned skiing in rural Nova Scotia and was intimidated by BC skiing. I
had to walk sideways on my skis to get to the bunny hill, it was quite
embarrassing. Could it get worse? You bet!
I approached the bunny hill, my boyfriend had already
reached the top of the bunny hill. I waited my turn while all the kids that
surrounded me caught the tow-rope up. When it was my turn I made it about
half-way up the hill before my crappy cotton gloves gave out on the tow-rope, I
frantically tried to pull myself along with the rope to no avail. My boyfriend
waited and watched, I think he tried to say something to me but I was too
caught up being embarrassed by the approaching child who was coming up behind
me on the tow-rope. Then the rope lost all traction and I start sliding
backwards towards the child behind me. The child wisely bailed off the rope and
went down half the hill rather than being back-plowed by a twenty-five year old
idiot sliding backwards. Part of me secretly wanted to play reverse ski-bowling
into the children to see how many I could scramble. The other part of me wanted
to crawl in a hole and die.
I managed to hold on to the rope as I slide backwards and
then with a massive jolt I began moving forward again and gained a little
ground up the bunny hill. I could feel the blisters forming on my thumbs so I
let go and skied off before getting to the top. This is possibly the most
embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me in front of my boyfriend (he missed me eat-it cross-country skiing a couple weeks ago). As soon as I was
within communicable distance with my boyfriend he shot off down the hill. While
cursing him, I debated how bad it would look if I had as much trouble going
down the hill as I did going up the hill. I discovered it could not be as embarrassing
and shot off.
We met at the bottom and I made him promise to not make me
do the bunny hill again. I used to think there was nothing as embarrassing as
being passed by a small child on skis, I was wrong. The most embarrassing thing
truly is halting the tow-rope line on the bunny hill while scrambling to hold
on and pull your pants up. The poor kids behind me definitely got a little skin
show; I need to by proper snow pants.
It has been said that I am relatively fearless on skis,
which is kind of true. My first hockey practice when I was 12 years old (I had
just quit figure skating to play hockey and had never skated in hockey skates
before) I was really proud of myself that I did not fall at all. I was skating astonishingly
slow, with flailing limbs; but I did not fall. My father was not impressed, he
told me that was not how to measure how well I was doing and that falling meant
I was really trying; I guess I took those words to heart because I tend to fall
a lot as an adult… especially skiing.
Anyways, I only had one real wipe-out skiing at Phoenix and it
was on my first run of the night. After the bunny hill everything seemed to
come back to me really quickly. I have a nice little snow burn on my side to commemorate
my only real skiing fail of the night on my first run, the tow-rope welts on my
thumbs are much worse. I was much more
of a disaster on cross-country skis (somehow).
Thank you to everyone at Phoenix Mountain, you made my first
night skiing trip memorable and managed to test my relationship! I think we passed
our first trip skiing as a couple, I managed to not embarrass my boyfriend
after the bunny hill experience and no one was injured.
I think Phoenix Mountain is the perfect starter hill, I am
so happy I warmed myself up skiing there! It would be a great place to take the
family and everyone there was incredibly nice! There is a full canteen with
everything you could ever wish for food-wise. I can’t wait until Mountain FM
night next year, I hope we see you there!
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